


(per)missive

by prosodiical



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Letters From Your Future Self, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22587100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/pseuds/prosodiical
Summary: The first missive Crawley gets is unprecedented. The signature on the bottom is his own.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 126
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	(per)missive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkingtothesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/gifts).



The first missive is unprecedented.

Crawley's been thinking of changing his name for a while, but that doesn't alleviate the disconcerting shock of seeing a scroll addressed to _Crowley_ sitting on his only table. He circles it, tasting the air, and can't find anything amiss; when he unrolls it it's a cramped mess of letters that make his vision briefly swim. It's bad timing at best, a pointed remark on his literacy at worst, and Crawley narrows his eyes at the hellfire signature at the bottom.

It is, defying all logic and reason, his own. 

He ends up carrying it around with him as he travels, from Lesbos to Sparta to Athens. He picks up reading Greek enough to decipher a few lines of text at a time, but it seems to be a matter of spending a few more months puzzling through it himself or giving the whole thing up as a bad job.

He weighs the scroll in his palm, and then picks option three.

"Angel!" Crawley barrels into Aziraphale's new home like he belongs there. Aziraphale doesn't appear to be expecting anyone; bent over a pile of scrolls and peeling a fig, he immediately freezes like a child caught thieving an apple. Then he takes in Crawley.

"Oh, it's you," he says, and there's a little more relief than censure in his voice. He clears his throat and cleans his fingers. "I mean. Crawley. Up to… much evil?"

"Nah," Crawley says, "it's my day off." Aziraphale's expression turns quizzical, and he rushes through the next bit: "Actually, I was hoping you could do a thing. Help me out. Lend me a hand."

"A… favour?" Aziraphale asks, and Crawley grins.

"A quid pro quo." He brandishes his scroll with a dramatic flourish. "Information for information. You read this for me, and you get to know what it says."

"And why would I want to know what it says?" Aziraphale says, but Crawley can feel the slow, pondering weight of his curiosity waking up. He buries it under anxious smiles and fluttery gestures and far too much politeness, but Aziraphale is the sort to wonder, if not to ask. "It isn't from…"

His eyes flicker downward. Crawley smirks.

"So what do you say?" he says. He doesn't lean forward, doesn't drop his volume or add a little persuasion to his tone. It isn't just because Aziraphale's an angel and such demonic tricks don't work on him, but Crawley doesn't like to linger on the real reason. He holds out the scroll.

Aziraphale examines him. "You tempter," he says, but his suspicion isn't unfounded. "You just want me to - read it?"

"Look," Crawley says, "I figured - get a message, haven't figured out the language yet, who do I know who's..."

He trails off, glancing around the room pointedly; the detritus of Aziraphale's collecting habit is mainly tablets and scrolls. Aziraphale turns pink.

"Oh, all right," he says, "I suppose if you're in need, I'll take a look."

His fingers brush Crawley's as he takes it.

Aziraphale glances over the name on the front, then unrolls it fully. As he scans over the cramped handwriting, his eyebrows furrow in an unreadable expression, and then he notices the signature at the bottom. "Crawley," he says, sounding disconcerted, "this is - is this from you?"

"What's it say?" Crawley says, and Aziraphale clears his throat and reads it aloud.

_Crowley,_

_The angel says proper letter-writing etiquette involves a salutation of some sort, but I think we can skip the formalities, don't you? You know who I am, and you can tell him I won the bet and he owes you a picnic in about 3,000 years._

_On the plus side, the world's not ended. And the capitalism thing really takes off._

The rest of it is just as irreverent, and though Crawley's never known himself to be much of a writer its length is nothing to sneeze at. Aziraphale keeps glancing at him as he reads it, this letter full of references to things that haven't happened (yet?) and phrases that don't translate well. And that isn't all, not when Aziraphale's presence in it seems like a given, mentions of wagers and dinners and - picnics. A bookshop, whatever that is. A garden. A child.

A house.

It ends on a terribly underwhelming _so good luck with it,_ and Aziraphale reaches for his cup of wine and clears his throat. Crawley isn't quite sure if he can meet his eyes.

"Well!" Aziraphale says, breaking the lingering silence. "That was - certainly a letter. Are you sure it was from yourself?"

"Er," Crawley says. "I signed it."

"Perhaps someone's capable of mimicking it," Aziraphale says, "or - well, it's quite difficult to believe, wouldn't you say - "

"Hey," Crawley says, "it's not like we're discorporating each other every century - "

" - I mean, sending a letter to the past! Surely that breaks some kind of rule of, of time coherence - "

" - and we're enemies, sure, but _friendly_ enemies, at least - "

Crawley cuts himself off. Aziraphale's gaze flits from his face to the scroll and away.

"Thanks for the," Crawley starts, then stops. "The letter."

"Oh, of course, any time at all," Aziraphale says. "I mean, not any time, but..."

"Yeah," Crawley says, and takes the scroll back, immediately deciding to make a run for it. Maybe he'll burn it. Maybe he'll keep it. But he's not sure he'll ask Aziraphale for help on it again.

(The second missive comes nearly a millennium later. He does.)


End file.
